


Everything Is Yours

by iridescentglow



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Consent Issues, Mild Gore, Multi, Murder Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 22:35:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/854754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentglow/pseuds/iridescentglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abigail, Hannibal and Will are reunited in Italy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Is Yours

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers:** #1.13, 'Savoureux'  
>  **Warnings:** gore; consent issues

The knife shook in her hand.

“Careful,” said Hannibal.

“You do it,” Abigail said, thrusting the knife toward him.

“No, it has to be you,” he said, fixing her with his gaze.

She knew it was the truth, so she steadied her hand and began to cut. The blade bit into the soft tissue of her earlobe and her hand jerked upward. Then she passed out from the pain.

She awoke moments later to the prick of a needle at her elbow. One of Hannibal’s hands cradled her gently and the other pressed down on the syringe, injecting morphine into her bloodstream. She passed out again and floated up to the ceiling.

She never wondered why he didn’t inject the morphine _before_ the amputation of her ear. She knew why. She saw the way his eyes went dark as the pain rushed into her face. She knew it was a memory that he would keep and savor. 

Later, she would resent the fact that he hadn’t allowed her to keep and savor memories of her own. The pain would have been incredible, but she would have liked to have seen his face as he stitched her up. She would have liked to have watched his surgeon’s hands at work. (She wondered: Did those hands tremble, even slightly? Did those hands linger on her body? Did he pause in his surgical duties to seek out the warmth of her breasts, the wetness between her legs?)

She woke up on a private plane several hours later, drowsy and bandaged. She never found out the particulars of what happened after Hannibal asked her to cut off her own ear and she said “yes”. She was left to imagine what must have happened. She hoarded the scant images that had filtered into her mind before she’d lost consciousness. The flecks of her blood on his cuffs. The slow sweep of his tongue as he moistened his bottom lip.

In the airplane, the white noise of the engines filled her remaining ear. Abigail closed her eyes to the sight of blue ocean thousands of miles below and wondered.

She wondered: Did his keep his cool, or did he allow himself to lick just one drop of blood from the curve of her neck?

*

A car and driver met her at the airport. _Signorina_...?

The driver spoke no English, so the ride from the airport passed in silence. From the signs, she knew she was in Italy. She also knew it was night-time. But she didn’t know the date, or even the day of the week. Yet somehow none of that mattered anymore.

In a Florence side street, the car stopped and she got out. The driver unlocked the door to a slender, three-story house rendered in salmon pink. He left the key in the lock and ushered her inside the house.

The driver handed her two envelopes and, with an awkward little bow, he left. She heard the car’s engine and then silence.

One of the envelopes was filled with cash. A thick wad of Euros, bright like Monopoly money. It was more money than she could imagine spending in a year. The other envelope contained a letter. It read:

_Dear Abigail,_

_Everything is yours._

_—H_

It took her a moment to realize that Hannibal meant everything in the house was hers.

*

Life in Florence was easy.

She could wander for hours and never get tired of the architecture, the weight of history that surrounded her. She was acutely aware of the billions of people who had traipsed these streets before her. So many people had lived and died in this city. It was a city of ghosts. And it made it easy to lose her own ghosts amid the crowds. She wondered if Hannibal felt the same way about Florence. _No_ , she decided. Hannibal wasn’t scared of his ghosts like she was. He welcomed them.

She spent her days outdoors, growing tan under the Tuscan sun. But she was always glad to return to the salmon house each evening. The best thing about the house was that everything smelled just like Hannibal. His scent, his very essence, was furled up inside each room.

During the evenings, she roamed the house restlessly, breathing him in. She sat at his desk chair in his gloomy office. She read his books, her fingers mauling the tissue-paper-thin pages. She used his art supplies to paint (badly). And, each night, she curled up in his bed to sleep.

It was several weeks before Hannibal arrived at the salmon house to join her. The bedroom was thick with darkness and Abigail was asleep. She felt the tips of his fingers stroke her hair and she was half-convinced that it was a dream. She reared up in bed, naked, and clawed at him like an animal. Her lips found his and she kissed him hard. He remained motionless, refusing to reciprocate her kiss. Then, gently, he folded her back into bed like a child.

“Oh, Abigail,” he said with a thin smile. He touched her hair once more – adjusting a few strands to reveal healing stitches and the absence of an ear – and then he turned and left the room, closing the door.

*

In terms of routine, life at the salmon house with Hannibal was much the same as it had been without Hannibal. Except, where once everything had a soft, sepia tone to it, now life existed in bright color.

Abigail continued to spend her days aimlessly. The difference was, now, each evening, she joined Hannibal for elaborate dinners. He bought her her own set of charcoals and paints. And he began to guide her reading habits, swapping the Marquis de Sade on her nightstand for Homer, which felt like an exquisite punishment.

At night, Hannibal slept in his own bed – with Abigail. If he was perturbed by the fact that Abigail refused to give up her place in his bed, he didn’t show it. There were plenty of other bedrooms in the salmon house, but he never indicated she should move into one of them. Hannibal still refused to touch her – he shut down every one of her clumsy advances with effortless finesse – but he never told her to find another place to sleep. That would be exceptionally rude, after all.

Hannibal left again, after a few nights at the salmon house, only to return two weeks later. He left and came back with regularity, his appearances turning up or down the saturation dial on Abigail’s life.

Whether he was beside her in bed or not, each night, Abigail burrowed deeper and deeper into dreams that had ceased to feel like nightmares. Some mornings she woke up alone and bereft. But, on other mornings, she woke up with her arms locked around Hannibal.

She savored his heat, the steadiness of his breath in her ear. And she tried to let go of the frustration that he wouldn’t make love to her.

*

Shortly after her arrival in Florence, Abigail had read about Will’s arrest online. On an iPad that she found tucked discreetly inside a desk drawer in Hannibal’s office, she paged through TattleCrime.com and tried to feel surprise.

That day in Minnesota, Hannibal had told her only that he needed her ear in order to frame _someone_ for the murders. And, she now realized, of course that _someone_ was Will.

In the story of her life, all roads intersected at Will Graham.

It was with even less surprise that Abigail read of Will’s escape from the mental institution a few weeks later. Hannibal was away – back in Maryland, she now realized – and she waited for his return with a jangling mix of excitement and anxiety.

When Hannibal finally did return to the salmon house, Abigail heard his voice before she saw him.

“Abigail,” Hannibal called up the dark stairs. “A visitor.”

“No,” came another voice out of the darkness. “Not a visitor.”

Hannibal’s reply was quieter this time, and Abigail had to turn her head, remaining ear facing out, in order to hear it.

“Quite so,” said Hannibal. “A new resident, not a visitor. Our friend will be staying as long as he chooses.”

Will’s harsh laughter was music to Abigail’s ear.

*

In the salmon house’s small courtyard garden, Abigail and Will sat facing each other. Hannibal was inside the house, cooking, and rich aromas rolled out through the open doors, making Will’s nostrils flare. He looked like he was having trouble breathing.

Abigail reached out and slid her hands into his, a mirror of how he’d once reached for her at the hospital.

“What did he say to you?” she asked. “To make you come?”

“He said,” Will began and then stopped. He worked his jaw for a moment and then tried again, his voice still hoarse. “He said: Your old life is over. You can leave with me now or you can stay here alone forever.”

_Alone. Forever._

Will spoke the last two words as if they were islands and swimming from one to the next required almost more air than he had in his lungs.

He met her gaze for just a moment before looking away again, but she could see that they were both thinking the same thing.

“I could save you,” Abigail said softly. “I could present myself at a police station. Alive… earless, but alive. I could confess. Tell the FBI that I’m the copycat. I killed Cassie Boyle and all the rest. And then you could go back to your old life.”

_Alone? Forever?_

Will squeezed her hands so tightly that it hurt.

“Abigail, I would never let you do that.”

“I know,” she said.

*

When she kissed him, she found that Will tasted like the ocean. His weak protests were belied by a tide of desire. He shuddered as she pressed her body against his. Where Hannibal was utterly unyielding, Will was as delicate as the tissue-paper pages of a book. The merest touch and Abigail could break through.

Hannibal still wouldn’t make love to her, but Will showed no such self-restraint.

It was such a brazen manipulation that Abigail was almost ashamed (almost), but the next day, she timed her seduction of Will so that Hannibal would find them together in his bed.

When Hannibal strode into the bedroom, they sprang apart. Will was cringingly embarrassed, pulling at the sheets like an old-movie heroine. Abigail simply sat up straight, making a fact of her nakedness. She craved a reaction from Hannibal, but it was on Will that his gaze lingered. A flicker of something appeared in his expression and then it was gone.

“Excuse me,” Hannibal murmured. He retreated from the room and reached for the door, shutting them inside.

*

“It’s not a bad life,” Abigail remarked later. She kicked her heels idly.

“It’s not freedom,” Will replied.

She and Will were out in the courtyard again, enjoying the dying day. Well, she was enjoying it – Will was festering.

_Abigail, I’m sorry. Abigail, I’ve taken advantage of you. Abigail, I can’t bear the thought of hurting you._

On and on, he went. Abigail turned her face up to the evening sun. The climate of uninterrupted sunshine in Florence hadn’t dulled her appreciation of it yet. And the air smelled savagely good. Hannibal had left steaks on the grill, the fat making electric noises as it crackled. 

Will was still talking and Abigail was only half-listening. The sudden appearance of a new thought caught her off guard.

_I’d like to slide a knife into your throat. See how those words look as they drip down over my hands._

She turned her face away from the sun, her thoughts spooling downward. The intentness of Will’s voice brought her back to the moment.

“Abigail, you should have your freedom,” Will said.

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “But I don’t have it.”

Will looked at her so sadly that she could only laugh.

“That’s the whole point of love,” she said matter-of-factly. “It keeps you locked up in a cage. Can’t escape love.”

Hannibal appeared behind her. He chuckled lightly at her comment and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder.

“Ah, the wisdom of youth,” said Hannibal.

He offered her a steak from the grill and she accepted.


End file.
